Word.ws English Dictionary

overply

overply verb: to ply to excess; to exert with too much vigour; to overwork.

Verb

overply (third-person singular simple present overplies, present participle overplying, simple past and past participle overplied)

  1. (transitive) To ply to excess; to exert with too much vigour; to overwork.
    • overply someone with booze
    • The Conscience, Friend, t'have lost them overply'd
      In Liberty's Defence1673, John Milton, “Sonnet 22”, in Poems, &c. upon Several Occasions, London: […] Tho[mas] Dring […], →OCLC

Forms of overply

third-person singular presentoverplies
present participleoverplying
past participleoverplied
pastoverplied

Origin of overply

From over- + ply.

Questions about overply

What does overply mean?
Overply means to ply to excess; to exert with too much vigour; to overwork.
What part of speech is overply?
Overply is a verb.
What is the past tense of overply?
The past tense of overply is overplied.

Words near overply in the dictionary

  1. overplusages
  2. overpluses
  3. overplussage
  4. overplussages
  5. overplusses
  6. overply
  7. overplying
  8. overpointed
  9. overpoise
  10. overpoised
  11. overpoises

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: overply (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “overply.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/overply. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.